New York Times Magazine: How to Record Thunderstorms
“Find a quiet place and be patient. Prioritize your safety.” Illustration by Radio
I was contacted in March 2022 by The New York Times to discuss the ins and outs of recording thunderstorms for the Magazine section of their Sunday edition newspaper. Not a very technical article, mainly for beginners, that’s OK with me. It’s wonderful that a field recording article ended up in the Times.
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FREE Crazy Sound of the Year: August 2021. No gimmicks, no sign ups, no bullcookies – just a nice sounding thunderstorm recorded with two MKH-8040ST ORTF microphone sets back to back for free, my gift to all of you wonderful audio professionals.
Backstory:
I have multiple sets of Sennheiser MKH-8040 microphones. I use two matched stereo sets, one XY, the other ORTF and a back up set. As you may know I love using the MKH-8040 microphones on guns and other sources but one of my favorite uses is for recording the sound of lightning and thunder. I have been recording thunder for over 30 years and have released many collections. All of these have been in stereo and they are wonderful but I wanted to up my game a bit and record in four channel format.
Free Crazy Sound for May 2016: Evening Thunderstorm
The free “CRAZY SOUND” of the month for May 2016. A nice evening thunderstorm recorded with a Sennheiser MKH8040-ST ORTF stereo microphone late in the evening. The sound file is 24-Bit 48kHz with Soundminer Metadata embedded. Enjoy! Namaste – Frank
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In this second and final article I will discuss microphone patterns, recording device pre amp settings, editing and the final mastering phase of this collection. Before I dive into all the technical mumbo jumbo I want to express that when I’m setting up and actually recording thunder and lightning I get quite excited. There must be something in the air, alien mind control beams or just the anticipation of getting the “ultimate” thunder clap or lightning strike. It’s very hard work and involves exercise, listening, tracking the storms and watching the skies. I feel like a kid in a candy shop and I feel the recording is the easy part. So, now we begin.
October 7, 2014 – Frank Bry
In this article I will reveal my secrets and techniques to recording decent thunder and lightning. Many, many years and sleepless nights have gone into perfecting the art of recording the thunderstorm and I will finally share. But first, I want to share a little history and tell you how I developed these secrets and techniques. It was not so easy at first and here’s the story I’m still alive to tell. Part 1: Live and Learn.
Thunderstorm III HD Professional SFX library Update: Three years ago I started recording all new thunder and lightning sounds for this new collection. As you might guess you cannot call up the thunder gods and schedule a recording session or two. Strange I know but that’s the way they work. So, I’ve been slowly and patiently waiting, recording, waiting, recording, editing, waiting, recording, etc during this time and have recorded quite a bit of material.
This is a recording of a thunderstorm that passed through in the middle of the night and completely caught me off guard. This is the time of year that the weather here in the North Idaho panhandle brings surprises. Cold, heat, wind, rain and lightning are the norm on any given day. The weekend was much cooler than the last two months and I should have known a storm would zip on though and I almost missed it. I checked the weather before heading off to sleep and there was a 30% chance of rain but no thunder in the forecast. My gear was down in my basement studio as I was rocked out of bed by a huge thunder clap. I fumbled my way to the gear and rushed to get my MKH-8040ST plugged in to my SD-702 and place the mic outside the front door. I noticed my Low cut filter was on from a previous session and tried to change it quickly but missed an amazing lightning strike.
All was not lost so I began recording as there was just a slight misty rain and hoped the storm would continue and it did. The wind and rain picked up as the thunder was distant and then there was a closer lightning strike off to the East and the echo ping ponged against the nighttime mountains. As the wind and rain became even stronger there was another strike and below you can listen to both strikes edited together. There is no EQ or compression just some soft L2 limiting.
Enjoy! -Frank
For the last month or so I’ve been driving my wife crazy with my microphone and recorder rigs sitting near the front door. I’ve been trying to record the thunderstorms that were forecast by the experts. So far I’ve been batting a thousand with thunder fail so last night I moved all the gear downstairs to the studio to make good with my wife.
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May 3, 2011
To kick off thunderstorm season here in North Idaho I want to share with you some new thunder and lightning recordings along with some from my Thunderstorm HD library released a couple years ago. I also want to share some of my tips and techniques I use when trying to record that elusive lightning strike. The audio clip below is thunder I’ve recorded over the last 2 years. The clip contains the raw recordings, no processing except crossfades and gain adjustments. What you hear is what you get. Now, some background information.
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